


A Wreck

by penhales



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 19:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhales/pseuds/penhales
Summary: Dinesh goes into a tailspin.(for Cirkne for the SV Winter Exchange)





	A Wreck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cirkne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/gifts).



It was Saturday morning at the incubator.

Dinesh could hear movement down the hall from his bedroom, where he’d been laid up awake for what felt like hours. Jared always got up early to make Richard breakfast and tea, no matter the day of the week, and Dinesh had learned that the hard way when he tried to swipe a piece of toast one morning while Jared was, he thought, out of the kitchen. Jared had reappeared so quickly Dinesh wondered if he was the owner of the only true invisibility device in the world. His bony fingers had closed around Dinesh’s wrist like a vice.

“I’m happy to make you some of your own toast.”

Jared had said to him, as if he wasn’t threatening to amputate Dinesh’s hand from lack of circulation.

“That’s ok, I’ll come back later.”

And he’d rushed straight back to his bedroom to hide until the others had gotten up too. Since then, Dinesh was careful not to leave his bedroom until after nine, when all of the others had started migrating to the kitchen as well. That particular Saturday morning, though, he was desperate to get his hands on the coffee maker and some poptarts. Sleep hadn’t been a good friend in a long time, and especially that previous Friday night, he hadn’t truly slept at all.

Things were normal for most of Friday. They all went in to work around 9am, Gilfoyle came sauntering in around 10am, and the day ran quietly and smoothly until around 5pm, when most of them started heading home. Richard and Jared stayed around, of course, and most often they didn’t come back to the incubator until after 9pm. That Friday, as Dinesh was on his way out, he stopped by Gilfoyle’s desk.

“Hey, what are you doing later?”

“Nothing.”

“I was thinking of trying out that new pizza place. You know, the one that will let you build a cheeseburger on top of your pizza? You wanna come?”

“No, I have a lot to do.”

“What are you talking about? You _just_ said you weren’t doing anything later.”

“I did say that.”

“Here’s something. What if you just wore a sign that says ‘I’m an asshole today’ on your biggest asshole days so I know not to talk to you at all?”

Dinesh went on his way without staying to hear anything else Gilfoyle had to say. He knew it was a dumb move to show Gilfoyle his hand with any kind of upset outburst, but sometimes he really wished Gilfoyle would just drop the tough and hateful act. It was annoying enough when it was good-natured and jokey, let alone when Gilfoyle actually felt like getting malicious.

Dinesh got into his Hyundai with exasperation. He missed his Tesla, but he’d sunk so much money into the black hole that car had turned out to be that he couldn’t afford to get another once the damage had been done on the first. Still, the Hyundai wasn’t the worst car he’d ever had and it handled pretty well as far as the city’s parallel parking issue was concerned. He pulled out of the garage and out onto the neighborhood street, thoughts focused solely on the waiting comforts only cheeseburger pizza could offer, and didn’t see the red Honda coming straight for him, the driver texting vehemently.

She wasn’t going very fast, and the collision felt more like someone literally stood next to his car and punched it as hard as they could, but it rattled him well enough. Dinesh fumbled with the gear shift for what felt like minutes, scrambling to put himself into park, and he finally slid to a dull halt in the left turn lane only a hundred feet or so from the garage exit. The texting driver jumped out of her car and came towards him with anger radiating off of her in waves. Dinesh clocked right away that she was hot, but she was built like a stone house, bigger and broader than him by more than a margin. She crowded in by his driver’s side window and knocked on the glass.

“Get out, asshole. Get out of the fucking car.”

“Just a minute.”

Dinesh shakily opened his glove compartment to fumble for insurance, but she knocked again, harder.

“Get out of your fucking car. You don’t need your insurance to look at what your shitty little Hyundai did to my car.”

“What’s going on?”

Dinesh’s head shot up. Gilfoyle was coming out of the garage towards them, calling out to the large, beautiful woman crowding Dinesh’s window.

“This idiot pulled out of this garage without looking both ways and now he won’t get out of his goddamn car.”

Without thinking, and in a haste to defend himself, Dinesh finally pulled himself out of his car. He wanted to comment on the massive dent blemishing his driver’s side door, but he was too hot-headed to feel concerned about it at that moment.

“You were texting and driving! I had plenty of time to go, you just couldn’t bother to look up from your fucking twitter feed!”

“You didn’t even look at me, I was coming right at you! You can’t be that fucking stupid!”

Gilfoyle smirked.

“Oh, he really can be.”

Dinesh threw his hands up.

“You know what? I’m not even doing this. I’m out.”

The terrifying beauty stepped forward and narrowed her eyes.

“You’re not going the fuck anywhere until I get your insurance and your driver’s license.”

Gilfoyle finally barked a laugh.

“You’re not serious? No offense, but I think the pint-sized Pakistani’s ride took a much bigger punch than yours did. Your paint didn’t even chip.”

“Who the fuck even are you?”

Dinesh started to open his mouth and let her know that Gilfoyle was essentially his own personal bully when Gilfoyle spoke for him.

“I’m his friend.”

Dinesh clamped his mouth shut in stunned silence.

The rest of the encounter went as expected, the exchanging of insurance, the obligatory picture taking of each other’s licenses, but the whole time Dinesh’s head was buzzing. Gilfoyle had just looked a stranger in the eye and come to his defense. Not only that, but he’d openly told a complete and utter stranger that Dinesh was his friend. He couldn’t focus on anything else. Dinesh knew he was deeply stupid, on his best day, but he almost couldn’t believe how incredibly stupid he’d have to be to be so amazed by Gilfoyle’s rarely (possibly never before) awarded friendship declaration.

By the time he’d finished working with the massive, gorgeous, scary offender, Gilfoyle had said something about catching him later and went back into the office like he hadn’t just come running at the sound of Dinesh’s car wreck. Left alone, Dinesh carefully inserted himself back into his bruised vehicle and drove home without even switching the radio on.

Once home, he tried to bury himself in every game he could get his hands on, sealed up in his bedroom with his PS4. He wasn’t even hungry for cheeseburger pizza anymore. That had to be a crime; robbing a person of their hunger for cheeseburger pizza.

He knew that Gilfoyle was his friend. No one spent several years of their lives purposefully antagonizing someone else with the kind of fondness and dedication Gilfoyle was capable of without actually considering that person a friend, even if it was buried deep down, or left unspoken -- which was exactly why Dinesh just assumed Gilfoyle would never say something like it to him for any reason. It would just go on as something neither of them talked about, but they both knew, like a secret so terrible that neither keeper would dare say it aloud for fear of its discovery. Thinking so heavily on it was just as stupid as his initial amazement, Dinesh knew, and so he continued gaming deep into the night, never tiring as he desperately hoped he would.

The mental downward spiral felt endless. What did Gilfoyle have to gain from helping him out with the car drama? From calling him a friend? Absolutely nothing. Gilfoyle only did things for personal benefit.

By the time morning reached him, he was a mess. He’d collapsed onto his bed at some point, five-o-clock shadow itching his chin, hunger and confusion still gnawing at him like twin piranhas.

A knocking on his bedroom door interrupted his spiral, and through the door, Gilfoyle called,

“You still in here?”

Dinesh didn’t so much as try to move.

“Yeah. What do you want?”

Gilfoyle let himself in, but he stayed, leaning, in the doorway.

“Just wanted to make sure you were still alive. You’ve been sealed in your bedroom for over twelve hours.”

“Yeah, I didn’t die in that accident yesterday. Since you suddenly give a shit.”

Dinesh wouldn’t give Gilfoyle the satisfaction of looking at him. It was all, still, stupid. Incoherently, sleep-deprivedly stupid.

“I do give a shit. I’ve always given a shit.”

“Gilfoyle, all you’ve ever cared about is making me look stupid.”

Gilfoyle laughed, but it didn’t sound as cruel as his laughs usually did. It was softer.

“You don’t need my help to look stupid, but I really wanted to help you yesterday. I care about what happens to you.”

Dinesh sat upright and folded his arms.

“OH, now you care. Okay. I got into a wreck with a _huge_ hot girl, Gilfoyle. That could have been the intro to a really great porn. It would have been me, in the porn.”

He moved to sit on the edge of his bed.

“But instead, you had to show up and say some confusing shit about being my friend and totally kill my boner both for the giant hot girl and for cheeseburger pizza. _Cheeseburger_ pizza! You’re a boner killer, Gilfoyle. That’s _not_ the intro to a great porn.”

Gilfoyle was quiet for a few moments before coming up with his response.

“Well, shit. Who knows what would have happened if I said I loved you instead?”

Dinesh forgot to breathe.

“-you uh. You-you, y-”

“Whoops. Guess I did anyway.”

Gilfoyle was long gone by the time Dinesh could try to respond with a terrified,

“I love you, too.” 


End file.
